Founded by a group of immigrant Welsh businessman in 1853, Jefferson Furnace was a noted charcoal furnace in the Hanging Rock region of southern Ohio. The iron produced here was well regarded and used at the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Local tradition holds that during the Civil War, iron from Jefferson Furnace was also used on the Union ironclad U.S.S. Monitor. Jefferson Furnace was one of the last operating charcoal furnaces in Ohio when it closed in 1916.